Sports Prince Should Watch: Quidditch

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I realize that of the 4,000 or so pages in the Harry Potter series, Prince has read exactly 1, but I still think he should become a fan of Quidditch. For those of you, like him, who are unfamiliar with the term, Quidditch is a sport created by J.K. Rowling and played by wizards on broomsticks hurling balls of various sizes around, trying to score points. There’s also another little tiny golden ball called the Snitch that they’re trying to catch. It’s all very complicated, but you can read all about it here.

Now, as us non-magical folk (or “muggles”) don’t have access to flying brooms or magically enchanted balls (okay, maybe Prince has access to magically enchanted balls, but I don’t want to know about that), a variation of the game has been developed and is played on college campuses across the country as part of the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association.

The rules are slightly different. The players carry regular brooms, the bludgers aren’t bewitched, and the role of the snitch is played by a person (usually a cross country runner) who can run anywhere on campus. But just like regular Quidditch, the teams are all coed, the games are violent and high scoring, and they have their own World Cup.

The entire tournament is played in one day at Middleburry College (the birthplace of the modern intercollegiate Quidditch movement) and has been called “the best college sporting event.” Over 20 teams participated, camping out in traditional tents, wearing nerdy jerseys with capes, and playing to packed crowds and comedian announcers. In the end, Middlebury beat Emerson to repeat as World Cup champions.

Why should Prince watch it? All spectator sports at their basic level are simply theater in another form. The Quidditch World Cup, born out of fiction, is simply a giant fan-driven theatrical event in one of its purest forms.